American teen sensation gets a rude shock after win
Source: Agencies |
August 5, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AMERICAN teenager Katie Ledecky got a rude introduction to the cost of success at the London Olympics on Friday.
After blitzing the host-nation's best hope for a swimming gold medal with an astonishing victory in the 800 meters freestyle final, the 15-year-old climbed out of the pool and walked straight into a storm.
Ledecky was not expected to win the gold medal, but that was not the least surprise.
It was the way she won it that set tongues wagging as soon as she touched the wall.
In her first international meet, she destroyed the world's best long-distance swimmers, including Britain's defending champion Rebecca Adlington.
Never in danger of losing, she was half a second away from breaking Adlington's world record after charging ahead from the start.
Within moments of her win, Ledecky's Wikipedia entry had been vandalized.
At her post-race conference, the inevitable inquisition began. She was asked if she thought her performance might raise the same questions that greeted China's 16-year-old Ye Shiwen's 400m medley world record, which provoked a storm of speculation in the Western media.
"They would be totally false," Ledecky said.
"I have just put in a lot of hard work in the last year, that's all it is.
"It is that simple and just setting short- and long-term goals. I have just been going to some big meets and having some big races, so that has helped me drop time progressively."
After blitzing the host-nation's best hope for a swimming gold medal with an astonishing victory in the 800 meters freestyle final, the 15-year-old climbed out of the pool and walked straight into a storm.
Ledecky was not expected to win the gold medal, but that was not the least surprise.
It was the way she won it that set tongues wagging as soon as she touched the wall.
In her first international meet, she destroyed the world's best long-distance swimmers, including Britain's defending champion Rebecca Adlington.
Never in danger of losing, she was half a second away from breaking Adlington's world record after charging ahead from the start.
Within moments of her win, Ledecky's Wikipedia entry had been vandalized.
At her post-race conference, the inevitable inquisition began. She was asked if she thought her performance might raise the same questions that greeted China's 16-year-old Ye Shiwen's 400m medley world record, which provoked a storm of speculation in the Western media.
"They would be totally false," Ledecky said.
"I have just put in a lot of hard work in the last year, that's all it is.
"It is that simple and just setting short- and long-term goals. I have just been going to some big meets and having some big races, so that has helped me drop time progressively."
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